


Counting

by arcanebond



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 06:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14182485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanebond/pseuds/arcanebond
Summary: "Nope, it's your room, and that makes it precisely the room I'm looking for." Molly smiles at him, the sort of shifty smile that is halfway between charming and up to no good.





	Counting

**Author's Note:**

> uhh the idea wouldnt leave me alone so i had to write it  
> its not necessarily anything shippy, but it totally could be too

It's the muttering that wakes him, too close and quietly frustrated against the quiet backdrop of night. At first Mollymauk thinks something might be wrong, but as awareness sets in and he focuses he can hear it properly.

"Twenty two, twenty three, twenty four..." 

Counting. Counting? Why?

He cracks an eye open to catch a glimpse of Caleb staring at him with intent in his furrowed brow. His lips are moving as he counts. Molly makes a noise of his own and rolls to his side, propping his cheek on his knuckles.

Caleb looks immediately off put, muttering a curse in that other tongue of his. "Please tell me you're not counting the eyes out there on things ready to eat us," Molly says, tone low to try and not disturb anyone else. 

"Nonsense, if there were things you would all be awake and in a circle protecting me." He's forthright about his own cowardice and Molly can appreciate that, lips splitting into a tired grin. The arm not supporting him gestures in a 'fair enough' manner. 

Seeing as how he wasn't on watch rotation Molly is quick to dismiss the whole thing. "Alright, I'm goin' the hell back to sleep." Caleb stares through him more than he does at him. He looks annoyed. Molly decides he doesn't care and rolls onto his back and if Caleb keeps counting he doesn't pay it any mind. 

Days pass. Time blurs together. Laughs are had, screams are had, blood was spilled and it brought them all together that much more. Funny how almost dying around the same group of people on a continual basis does that. 

They've holed up in a quaint inn, pushing two smaller tables together for their motley crew. Things have come to a lull, conversation died down as they either sip at drinks or snore atop the table. Caleb is across Molly and he's counting, again, which isn't anything particularly strange because Caleb counts things all the time. Must be a nervous tick, everyone had them. Well, mostly everyone. 

Molly lets it happen for a minute before he gets too curious for his own good. 

"What are you doing?"

"Counting. Seventeen, eighteen -"

"I can tell, but what are you counting?" 

Caleb sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose as his concentration was shattered. He knows where he was at, but also knows he'll have to start over out of sheer compulsion. There were a great deal of things on the tiefling across the way he could be counting, but he opts for honesty. 

"Your scars."

This causes a raise of the brow and Molly almost looks surprised. Oh, right, those things. So much a part of him he never pays them much mind, it's hard to remember the oddity of them. He only supplies a useless, "Huh," in response to it and goes back to drinking.

Caleb doesn't resume counting. 

Eventually he totes a sleeping Nott up to their room. After making sure she's nice and tucked in he takes out the silver spool of thread and goes through motions so second nature to him now. Not five minutes after he's done there's a tickle at the back of his mind. The door opens and there's Molly, which is kind of strange considering the door was locked, but he notices a key in a lavender hand and presumes a little goblin girl is missing hers. 

At least Molly has the decency to set it on the nightstand as he saunters in. 

"This is the wrong room," Caleb tells him, not sounding one way or the other over the invasion. As far as he knew the tiefling and Fjord were more or less constant roommates, so why he's here is beyond him, but also not of too much interest. 

"Nope, it's your room, and that makes it precisely the room I'm looking for." Molly smiles at him, the sort of shifty smile that is halfway between charming and up to no good. 

He sheds his coat, and folds it with noticeable care. Caleb shifts with noticeable discomfort. Molly can see he's preparing to say something stupid and he reflects on a suave older figure cooler than all of them put together, pressing a finger to his own lips and shushing the wizard before he has a chance to say something painfully awkward for the both of them. 

"I'm doing you a favor, I promise." And then he starts taking off his shirt and Caleb looks about ready to become proficient in rogue throwing. A goblin to the face might be just what he needed to get him out of his sudden, horrible situation he otherwise didn't even know how to begin handling. 

Molly, for his part, remains calm and collected. Everything Caleb isn't. 

"Listen, Mollymauk, you ---" He gets cut off as this time the finger is pushed against his own lips. 

"Whatever you're thinking it's not. You wanted to count my scars and I'm going to let you. Simple as that." The ease with which he gets the shirt over his horns is impressive, if nothing else. Caleb still looks suspicious and mildly terrified, but he seems more receptive. 

"You are very skilled at that. The whole," he gestures awkwardly, "removing the shirt thing. With your horns I would assume it was difficult and you're giving me a look why are you giving me that look for?"

Molly is, indeed, giving him a look. "It's like you don't talk when you should and you do talk when you shouldn't. Also I've had horns my entire life, I've learned how to work around them." He sounds more amused than genuinely off put. 

Caleb opens his mouth only to shut it and frown while nodding slowly. "Makes sense, makes sense," he says almost tentatively, rubbing his face. He looks to the now fully exposed chest of the tiefling, eyeing the rows and rows of what were once wounds all along the lavender. The how and the why don't matter much to him, more so the sheer quantity of them and that nagging itch of not knowing precisely how many there are. He thinks about it while Molly stands there impatiently. From her bed Nott snorts a little, tosses, but otherwise doesn't stir. 

"Alright. Alright. Let's get to this then, shall we?" Caleb decides, if only to put his own mind at rest. Molly's smile seems gentler, almost. A little less shifty than before.

It's almost more off putting. 

Caleb begins to count. The scars have a chaotic pattern to them. Centralized where flesh was exposed from an open shirt, straight and precise. Some deep, some so faint it's hard to tell they're even there. A few odd ones stand out away from the cluster, probably caused by hands, or claws, or teeth, or other various sharp and pointy things than his own.

"Four, five..." he scrunches his face because Molly is moving away from him, "great, now I have to restart."

"Oh had you started? I didn't even notice." Judging by his grin, Molly definitely had noticed. He sits on the bed not occupied by a sleeping Nott. "I am not standing for all of this." Caleb just sort of nods after a moment, he'll give him that, then thinks about what he should be doing with himself right about now. 

Jumping out the window still seems like a viable option. 

Instead he stiffly sits on the bed as well and questions every single decision he's ever made to bring him here, to this particular moment in time. He reaches out, "May I?"

"Oh be my guest," Molly gestures to himself and Caleb is only mildly envious of the assurance and self confidence that exudes from this strange man. It must be nice. 

He hesitates at first, going from the lowest point of discolored flesh. Hesitates again through the first handful, fingers just barely tapping over the lines as he mutters number after number beneath his breath. Molly is patient. He could easily talk and distract, but his devil's tongue is gentle this evening and he simply allows it to continue on. 

Caleb's touches are methodical. There's no intimacy to it, no lingering, he's focused and that focus blurs into tunnel vision. Molly studies his face in the downtime. Dirty and rough around the edges, he could do with a shave, and a long, hard scrubbing. He jots down a mental note to do just that next time they're in a bath house, whether the wizard liked it or not.

"Twenty, twenty one, twenty two..."

It's a little interesting to hear the numbers add up. Worrying, for some, maybe, but Mollymauk has long embraced them. Accepted them as who he was and who he will be. Besides, they make him look cool. Intimidating. Scars are a proof of survival, no one needed to know how many of them came from the welcomed edge of his own blades. 

The night passes and Molly's eyes almost feel a little heavy. Drinks of the night have him feeling pleasantly warm and the counting is almost akin to sheep going over his head. Fingers tap against his neck, tracing the lines there until finally the hand pulls away. Probably a good thing, he was about ready to face plant in Caleb's lap and begin snoring, which while hilarious might give the poor wizard a heart attack. That could be saved for another night. 

"Done already?" A yawn breaks apart his words. Caleb has his lips drawn into a thin line and he nods. 

"Yes, I am finished," he says in that typical, halting way of his. 

Molly doesn't bother asking what the total count was. He checked out somewhere halfway through and it wasn't particularly important to him. 

"Great. I think that went well. I feel like we really bonded over this." He claps a hand on Caleb's shoulder, the corners of his eyes wrinkling from the width of his smile. Molly rises, stretches, and immediately Caleb looks concerned, but the tiefling isn't paying attention. 

He pivots with what would have been a flourish had he still been wearing his cloak and makes way to where he'd neatly folded and set aside said cloak as well as his shirt. Not wanting to take the time to put either of them on he's all too ready to slip out the door when Caleb speaks up behind him. 

"On your, on your arms and the back of your neck, I did not realize," he sighs like this has become the worst day of his life, "scheisse, now I have to start all over."


End file.
